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Hunters of Men
History Unlike most Deviants, the Hunters of Men have existed, with one roster or another, for many thousands of years. Prehistory to the Modern Era: Ten thousand years ago, humanity was beginning to settle down and raise crops as opposed to following and hunting big game. At this time, two hunters from a village in what is now the southeastern corner of Arizona were selected to receive a great gift from the Spirits of Nature, who governed all aspects of the natural world. They were told that the gift would allow them to share the strength of the Spirit Wolf, whose purview was that of the hunt. It turned them into the first werewolves, the brothers Lejule and Lazar. The two of them used their new abilities to yield better results from their hunts. Still, at heart, the werewolves were human, prone to the same virtues and vices. Lejule’s wife bore him a half-werewolf son nearly nine months after the night the brothers were turned. Lazar, envious, attempted to have a child by his own wife for the next decade and a half. When she miscarried for the sixth time, he grew furious and punched her hard enough to break her neck. One of the tribe’s other hunters happened to be walking by at that moment and attempted to kill the accidentally murderous werewolf. Lazar instinctively protected himself and killed the hunter. The train of events simply went downhill from there. At some point along the way, he ingested some human flesh. Instantly, he became addicted to the taste. The slaughter left only five members of the tribe alive: Lazar, Lejule, his wife and son, and the village shaman (if only barely for the last). Immediately swearing revenge for those killed, Lejule chased Lazar away from his family and sent them in the opposite direction while he tried to hunt his brother down. In what is today Venezuela, Lazar, presumably with the help of his werecoyote wife, found a way to transform innocent humans into werewolves and indoctrinate them with the same addiction. Thus began the pack now known as the Hunters of Men. Over the millennia, Lejule has created his own pack to fight back, staying in the background of history to avoid persecution. Every now and then, a Hunter would kill enough people in a short enough period of time for humans to take notice. One of the most notable in recent times was the Beast of Gevaudan in the seventeen sixties. Other times, the history books were rewritten in order to cover up the involvement of werewolves, starting around three to four thousand years ago. The most notable example is the story of Beowulf. In the epic poem, he was a greatly above-average human hero who slew three great monsters, Grendel, its Mother, and a dragon. In reality, Beowulf was, at that time, a six-thousand-year-old werewolf who fought off an entire pack of Hunters of Men, culminating in a battle with their alpha female, who was even older. The dragon-slaying did happen, although not as described. Like all Deviants, despite their great age and power, werewolves have done surprisingly little to alter the timeline from what history books report. This is most noticeable in war-time. Every war humanity has fought has had enough werewolf soldiers on both sides to cancel out the advantages they bring. 2010–2013 Even during the turmoil of recent years, alien invasions and war between Deviants, Hunters of Men have had little overall impact. When Psi-Void attacked the Earth, the werewolves defended their territories with such zeal that not one of the droids sent after them returned to their master. During the Freedom War, the werewolves mostly ignored the conflict to concentrate on keeping their own civil war mostly secret. Not even R.A.P.T.O.R. ever knew the full scale of the Wolf Wars. Then came the rise of the godling, Omega. The Head-Alpha of the Hunters of Men, Lazar proved to be practically instrumental in the demon’s release. In an attempt to atone, he flew to his brother’s adopted home town of Trenton and negotiated a cease-fire in the Wolf Wars, at least until Omega was dealt with. He ordered his pack around the world, every single Hunter, to comply with the peace treaty. However, for nearly a quarter of them, the bad blood ran too deep, and they stayed loyal to Omega. When the Wave cast every single Deviant adrift on the currents of space-time, the world thought that was the end of it all. However, over the course of months, Deviants began to reappear. Among them were the entirety of the Hunters of Men who had stayed loyal to Omega and their addiction to human flesh, all four-hundred-thousand-plus of them. Only Lejule and Lazar have returned to oppose them, so far, marking a very long, uncertain path ahead for humanity’s future. Physiology The Hunters of Men are a very diverse group, coming from every ethnicity, age, and gender. Every one is unique. That being said, there are still some similarities for the entire species. Foremost among these is the element that makes all life possible. Spirit Energy. The particular wavelengths of spirit energy make it impossible to detect using modern scientific apparatuses. Every being possesses a shard of it, but some have more than others. Werewolves possess the largest shards that fit in physical bodies, and it is what allows them to shift into their wolf forms. For humans, who have a little less, it is what allows complex thought. For animals, it powers their instincts. Each werewolf ranges in height from seven feet to (in a very few extreme cases) nine feet from the top of their head (not counting ears) to the bottom of their feet in their wolf forms. Their bodies mass between one hundred fifty to two hundred fifty kilograms (330-550 pounds) on average and are always heavily muscled. A single study has ever been done to find the reason for this apparent breaking of the laws of physics, specifically the Law of Conservation of Matter. What was found was that a werewolf’s body is able to pull energy from the surrounding environment and slow it down until it becomes additional mass. They can easily stand on their hind legs for hours on end, although the most feral of the Hunters prefers to prowl around on all fours. Their forepaws have a distinctly hand-like appearance to them and can manipulate objects just as easily as a human. A werewolf’s claws can be either ivory or black and are unbelievably sharp. Just how sharp they are has been almost impossible to prove, but it has been observed that they can tear through steel and even (just barely) scratch diamond. This seems to, in part, be because the claws are made of bone rather than keratin. That being the case, it is a complete mystery why the claws of many werewolves are black instead of the ivory color of the bone they are attached to. Their teeth should be just as durable. The eyes of a Hunter, one of the few details they can carry to their human forms, are blood-red, showing their eternal bloodlust. Likewise, their fur runs through various tints and shades of rust-red, the outward display of their blood-soaked spirit. A trait inherited from their human lives is that the more years a werewolf exists, the lighter their fur. The irony of this fact means that a newly-turned old man who has white hair on his head would have pitch-black fur, while a teenage human form could be hiding a werewolf whose fur is very pale rust in color. The most unique feature of every werewolf, and every skinwalker, in general, is their astonishing grade of regeneration. It allows them to survive any injury that does not destroy their central nervous system. If a Hunter loses a limb, a new one grows in its place mere hours later. If they suffer nerve damage, their rate of regeneration is slowed, requiring a month or more to heal. A blow that destroys the brain-body connection, however, is lethal. Damage dealt by the teeth of another werewolf is permanent (case-in-point, Lejule has a bobbed tail because Lazar bit it off during their first fight). Poisons that do not damage the nerves are ejected with their effects completely nullified in a day or so. They are completely immune to disease and aging. Whatever age they were turned at is the age of their human forms for the rest of their lives. Most of humanity’s popular opinions of werewolves have roots in fact. The full moon, biting, silver, and talismans all do have special properties in the context of werewolves. Werewolves do have to transform every full moon, due to the fact that the brothers became werewolves on a full-moon night. However, with age, they can learn to shift into their wolf form at other times, starting with the other nights of the month, and then the days. By the end of their first millennium, a werewolf can transform any time, day or night. A werewolf can be created when a human is bitten, but the bite must be held for at least three seconds in order for enough venom to seep into the werewolf-to-be’s body to set off the chain of events that will create the new werewolf. Silver has been considered the one material that is guaranteed to kill a werewolf for decades. However, the entire myth of silver arose from a human observing a bizarre quirk of werewolf biology. When they are young, a werewolf’s biochemistry reacts strongly to the chemistry of silver. When the material touches their blood, the result is an intensely painful burning sensation, but nothing more than that. Eventually, usually after about half a century, their body adapts and the allergy goes away. The talismans are an interesting case. They are the only other way for someone not related to a werewolf by blood to become a werewolf. The procedure for making one requires a blacksmith and a werewolf ready to bleed. The talisman takes the form of an amulet forged out of any metal and quenched in the fresh blood of a werewolf. During the quenching, a fraction of the donor werewolf’s spirit energy latches on to the talisman. When worn on a full-moon night, the energy moves to the wearer’s heart, turning them into a werewolf. Society Like wolf packs in captivity, Hunters of Men live in rigidly hierarchical packs. Leadership is determined by ritualized combat, which is seldom lethal. The oldest, and therefore strongest, werewolf is usually the Alpha, but a better tactician may end up in the position by trusting in their intelligence more than their brawn. Gender does not matter, as an old female will not simply roll over and let a younger male take the reins of the pack, unless she has an ulterior motive for doing so. The Pack Alphas, in turn, give their allegiance to Regional Alphas, who reign over hundreds or thousands of square miles of territory and multiple packs. They, in turn, pledge their allegiance to the Head Alpha, ruler of all Hunters of Men. For most of their history, this has been Lazar, oldest and strongest of them all. However, when he decided to betray Omega and sided with his brother, Lejule, thus giving up the Hunt, a large portion of his pack, including his Beta-male, Pontius Pilate (Yes, that Pontius Pilate), withdrew their allegiance. Pilate is the new Head Alpha in the wake of the Wave. Beta wolves are usually the second strongest werewolves in their packs and serve as the enforcers for their Alphas. Their job is to take care of any trouble-makers and other problems that the Alpha cannot be bothered with.